25 October 2000...December 2000
(24 pgs.)
TITLE:
There's no such thing as a pseunami but a tsunami is
a very large ocean wave caused by an underwater earthquake or volcanic
eruption.
Definition
source
Pseudo means false, deceptive or sham. So I suppose a Pseunami is
a fake tsunami.
SYNOPSIS
On New Years Eve 1999/2000 all the elastagel joins
together to form one giant slime that threatens to drown the city until
Promethea manages to make communication with it. Her two snakes from her
caduceus introduce themselves as Mack (Macrocosm) and Mike (Microcosm) and
decide to take her on a tour of the magic circus of the mind.
NOTE: This
whole episode bears more than a little resemblance to Tom Strong Issue #3 Aztec
Nights
QUOTES
“I’ve got some uneasy feelings about tonight, but it’s
nothing I could pin down…” – Kenneth
“Huh. Well, there’s a surprise” – Roger,
pg 3
“I knew it! You hump one hippy, right away you’re this little
technophobe hobbit-hugger!” - Stacia, pg . 4
“Sonny Baskerville today boosted
City Finances with his radical ’tax the churches’ scheme. ‘Hail Satan’, quipped
the increasingly popular N.Y. Mayor” – TEXTure, pg 4
“Soph, you’re an
unfortunate ghetto kid whose mom spent all the Christmas money on
pina-colada-flavor condoms. I was tactless even mentioning my jacket” – Stacia,
pg 5
“God, look at her! I mean, that is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever
seen” – Sanchez, pg 10
“Is this the end of the world? Is this revelations?” –
Riley
“Oh, I wish. Look, don’t get me started, okay?” – Promethea(6), pg
12
“Bob, I’ve never told you this, but your entrance lines really get on my
nerves” – Roger, pg 14
“Kenneth, you may not be as inept as you seem” –
Promethea, pg 18
“He’s Mike. I’m Mack. We only look alike.” – Mack
“He
says ‘yes,’ I say ‘no’
He’s above, and I’m below” – Mike
“So Macro’s him,
and Micro’s me…” – Mack
“Pray, how may we enlighten thee?” – Mike, pg
22
“I need to understand magic, and I think I’ve reaches a point where just
studying it in books isn’t enough. I need to understand it from inside” –
Promethea, pg 23
“External things dissolve like mist.
Inside are thrills
none may resist” – Mike
“Draw matter’s tent-flaps back and find
The magic
circus of the mind” – Mack, pgs 23-24
NOTES & ANNOTATIONS
So far as I know this is the only entire
episode of a title scripted by Alan Moore where the panels are all sideways.
Swamp Thing #34 Rite of Spring had a few pages printed sideways but not the
whole issue. Please correct me anyone if I am wrong about this.
Page 1 Panel 1: On earth we can see Somalia and Yemen
in Arabia. Here's a closer
map
Here a nice satellite
photo of the area
I wonder why the earth is obviously from a satellite
photo while the rest of the panel is drawn?
I asked JHW3 about his
source for the Hi-5 space station and his reply was
the design of the HI
5 space station is made up but I did want it to look like something that was low
tech enough to be kind of believable
It sort of vaguely reminds me of
some 2001 spaceships.
Page 2 Panel 1: Marvin still recovering from being shot by the Painted
Doll is working seated in a GelTM Chair. Note the pink slippers he is
wearing which will become more obvious on the next page.
Panel
3:
As far as the various trophies on Hi Five are concerned even
JHW3 who drew the panel isn't sure of their meaning or if the dates are
significant. Maybe if someone has access to Alan Moore and sees this page they
could ask him what they mean. Meanwhile here are some guesses
Aetherean Meta Mirror
(Sep. 1989)
Sandroid
Bio-Silicate Sentry of the Dust Emperors (July 1995)
Femtoverse engineered by
the Jeweler (March 1993)
JDC says that like me
I haven't heard of a
definition for "femtoverse," but:
A femtosecond is one millionth of a
nanosecond or 10-15 of a second and is a measurement sometimes used in laser
technology.
See this
link for more details.
Evil Lord of Eye
Spiders Captured 1991
Page 3 Panel 1: Marvin wears Fluffy Pink Bunny
slippers a la Hot Shots! Part
Deux.
Pages 4-5: Nice use of the texture screen on the right hand
side to connect 5 of the 6 panels. Sophie and Stacia make their way downward in
a zig-zag fashion.
Page 5 Panel 1: Nepilim Music
That
strange creature behind the weeping gorilla looks familiar. Can anyone name
it?
Page 6 Panel 2:
Showing at the cinema are the following
movies:
Eraserhead
Millenium…
2001 A Space Odyssey
Page 7 Panel
1: the girl on the left babbling about the end of the world is prequoting a
Weeping Gorilla Quote that will appear on page 17 of this issue.
Panel
2: Can anyone recognize the black shirt the man is wearing saying something
like Mek...tough ?
Page 8: We can finally read what the sign says
properly. It is
Martin’s Soup.
Page 9: Panoramic Polychromatic
Productions
reminds all us Moore fans of the alliterative letters in
1963.
Page 10: I'm not sure why the police should have red apples on
their uniforms. Maybe they represent the Big Apple.
Page 11 Panel
1:
"You have the voice of little girl and look like an angel" –
translation from Spanish Police Officer.
"My valiant man I was young when
Rome fell and you should go and attend to your injury" – translation from
Spanish Promethea.
Page 17 Panel 3: Doug Scott notes that
there's the top half of a
Weeping Gorilla poster in which the Gorilla wears a toque and thinks, "I'm
sorry. I'm so sorry. This is all my fault."
This is a reference to the
famous 1999 horror cinema-verite movie The
Blair Witch Project Part way through the film, the character of Heather
Donahue holds her camcorder up to her own face and apologizes to any viewers for
all the horrible things that have happened to her friends. She doesn't use the
exact words quoted here but they're close enough.
Page 19 Panel
3:
According to Todd
Klein these goobledegook numbers are a small part of the computer code for
Promethea in Adobe Illustrator
Page 18 Panel 3/Page 19 Panel
2:
Christine Hoff Kraemer suggests
when Promethea says to the
elastagel blob,
"come, then, synthetic one... let us reason
together."
this appears to be an allusion to Isaiah 1:18:
"Come now,
let us reason together," says the LORD . "Though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be
like wool."
Pages 22-23:
Finally we get bright yellow color taking
over from the mostly green and blue and black that has dominated this
issue.
Page 23 Panels 2-3: are almost identical except for the extra
smoke and the fact that we are moving in closer.
Page 24: We begin to
step outside of normal everyday reality which is seen in the spheres just behind
Promethea. On the sphere with white writing I can make out the
following:
PHANTASMAGORIC PSYCHEDELIC DRIFTING CONTINUUM SURPRISE AND
WONDERMENT WEIGHTLESS AND FANTASTIC INNER DIME...ART N'OUVEAU PETER MAX ERNST
HIPPY SIXTIES ACID HEAD VERSION OF INTER..SLIGHTLY UNDERWATER FEEL TO TH..DIANT
COLORFUL SPHERE GHOST REFLECTION
Peter
Max is a contemporary painter.
Max Ernst (1891-1976)
was a German painter poet and member of the Dada and Surrealist art movements.
The chess board pattern in blue and black will be a recurring motif in the
next issue and the bright green sperm invading the ova will occur on the first
and last page of the next issue although there they will be the more traditional
white color.
The 3 men visible in the bubbles are Jack Faust, Neil Gaiman and young Austin Osman Spare with
his hair shaved short.
The next issue is promised to be
Perhaps the
strangest comics-reading experience of the DECADE!
Will it live up to
expectations?